Lorilynn Crisp

I always thought I would be a horrible witness to a crime.  I couldnt  tell a sketch artist how to draw my daughters face if my life depended on it.   I wonder if police sketch artists are even aware of this condition.  I have yet to meet anyone else with aphantasia outside of this group (which makes me think it is rarer than reported, but that is just me).

I can read books and watch movies and shows over and over again.  I may remember the "jist" of what happened, but not any details.  I count that on the plus side of aphantasia.

After the first Harry Potter movie came out, my daughter said, "That was not how I imagined him.  How did you imagine him?".  I was like, "uhhh, brown hair, glasses, lightening scar".  I had no idea what she talking about it.  I am a fast reader but now I realize that I skim over descriptive parts.  I just want to know what happened.  I dont care what the sky looks like, or the trees, etc.  I had a friend tell me that she fell asleep while reading and it was so good that when she woke up, she forgot if she was reading a book or watching a movie for a minute. She was like, you know what I mean, and I was like No, I have no idea.  I am 100% aphantasic.  My daughter asked if I talk to myself in my head.  And although I have a constant narration going on in im head, it not a conversavation.  If I dont have narration, I am humming a song or singing just a line from a song.  But I am really bad at lyrics, it is like whatever the last thing I heard will just go on repeat.  I always wondered how my daughter would know the lyrics to a song after only hearing it a few times.  Now I know that she has the ability to replay music in her head the same as she heard it on the radio.  I mean it is the band that she hears singing the song not just a voice in her head.  Now I have known that I was a "non-visualizer" since 1984.  But since this came about in a meditation class, I always thought that people had to be really relaxed and in a "medative state" to visualize.   When I talked to my sister about this, she could not only visualize the beach and the ocean, but she could "feel the sun on her face" and hear the "ocean waves".  People can even "taste" in their mind.  This is what I mean when I said I was 100% apantasic, I have no sensory imaging.  I sometimes wonder if this is why I have an "addiction" to food.  Most people can image what a pizza tastes like.  I have to actually eat the pizza.  I am rambling - but you are far from being alone.

There have been a few times when I  see an outline of something when I am just drifting off to sleep but it goes away the second I realize that I am still awake.  

From what I have read, Aphants experience different levels of dreams.  Having vivid dreams doesnt meant that you do not have Aphantasia.  It has more to do with - Can you close your eyes and visual an apple?  The majority of the people will see the apple as if they were looking at a picture.   Aphants see nothing.  We close our eyes, we see black.   Anyways, that is how it is for me and from my research, that is how it is for the majority of aphants.    

I like to think of what goes on in my mind is a narrative description.  You can draw a star because you know what a star looks like.  If someone tells me to imagine a beach, I can't picture a beach but I can describe what it would look like - blue sky, ocean water, waves hit the sand.  There could be seaweed or shells on the beach, maybe foot prints.  People who know this because their mind has created a picture will ask, how do you know if you cant see it?  The knowledge is in my head.  I know what a beach looks like.  I was at the beach a few days ago, can  I tell excatly what I saw?  No.  It was cold and foggy, but other than that your basic beach.  I hope this helps.  Aphantasia is a spectrum and people experience it at different levels.  Same with dreaming, people experience it at different levels.  I imagine this is true with visual people also.

Nothing really - My mind just repeats the words.

<p>I feel like you do in that I wonder how much of this negatively affected me.   Is the reason I think goals are stupid is because I can’t see myself accomplishing them?  Would I have better reading comprehension if I could picture what I was reading and could I have done better in school?   How much if my life long depression is associated with this?  I am not nostalgic and don’t remember many things.   Just always wonder how life would be different.  </p>

I first learned in 1983 in a setting of learning to relax and the instructor asked if  anyone was a non- imager.  So I knew I couldn’t create images in my mind.  I always thought that people had to be in a total relaxed state and really concentrate to create images.  It wasn’t until 2019 when I was in therapy and was getting totally frustrated when she is asking me to recall details of a situation and putting stuff in a box.  Even now I can’t recall all the stuff that was involved in the therapy.  I then started asking people about what they experienced and was shocked when they described vivid images. I asked my sister to imagine she was at the beach and said she could even feel the sun.   When I show people the description of aphantasia I get “I’m sorry” almost every time which makes me feel like I really must be missing something.   Needless to say I started researching at that point.